Editorial Content

Senators ask FCC to end Hunt?

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Article in Reuters by David Shepardson, 7/16/25

Headline:  “Senators urge FCC chair to end probes into CBS News, other media outlets”

“Two Democratic U.S. senators on Wednesday urged Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr to end investigations into CBS News and other media outlets.

“Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Ed Markey, in a letter to Carr first reported by Reuters, urged the commission ‘to end its partisan attacks on CBS and cease interfering with the judgment of independent news organizations. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/senators-urge-fcc-chair-end-probes-into-cbs-other-outlets-2025-07-16/

Media Make Frank Unhappy

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Article in Raw Story by Robert Davis, 7/14/25

Headline:  ” ‘They’re pissed’: CNN hosts slam Trump for losing control of ‘MAGA Frankenstein’ “

“CNN host Abby Phillip and reporter Donie O’Sullivan slammed President Donald Trump on Monday night over his inability to speak to his base following the latest scandal.

“Last week, Justice Department officials issued an unsigned memo contradicting many points of the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theory that Trump and his surrogates have parroted for multiple years. The move set off a firestorm within the MAGA base and has become a political liability for the Trump administration.

” ‘Perhaps it’s not surprising that his ‘MAGA Frankenstein’ doesn’t believe him,’ Phillip said. . .”

Read the full story at:

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2673207755/

Mr. Fixit and Wapo

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 7/14/25

Headline:  “WaPo’s Looming Opinion Overhaul”

Subhead:  “Adam O’Neal was appointed last month to lead the Washington Post’s opinion section – on Monday, he officially started and introduced himself to staffers, promising ‘ambitions and thorough’ change on the horizon”

“On Monday morning, just a few minutes past 9 a.m., staffers on The Washington Post’s opinion desk saw an email slip into their inbox. It was from Adam O’Neal, the little-known editor recently named to take over the prestigious and politically influential section. Staffers didn’t know much about him. They didn’t even know when he was supposed to start. So when his note arrived, simply titled ‘Looking forward,’ they opened it with curiosity—and a fair dose of apprehension.

“Indeed, staffers have been on edge ever since O’Neal was abruptly introduced as their new editor in an unconventional, selfie-style video posted to The Post’s communications account on X. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/adam-oneal-washington-post-introduction-memo-opinion

Objectivity or Propaganda?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Julie Gerstein & MArgaret Sullivan, 7/10/25

Headline:  “Is Objectivity Still Worth Pursuing?”

Subhead:  “A generation of journalists is challenging traditional standards.”

“Objectivity hasn’t always been a cornerstone of journalism. American publishers first turned to objectivity in the early twentieth century, in response to the freewheeling ‘yellow journalism’ common at the time. Readers embraced it, grateful for a withdrawal from sensationalism and opinionated coverage.

“American journalist Walter Lippmann, one of the early champions of objectivity, saw the dangers posed by propaganda masquerading as news and argued in 1920 that the ‘sensible procedure in matters affecting the liberty of opinion would be to ensure as impartial an investigation of the facts as is humanly possible.’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/is-objectivity-in-journalism-still-worth-pursuing.php

How do you Cover Extremism?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Liam Scott

Headline: “How Local Reporters Manage the Dangers of Covering Extremism”

Subhead: “The extremism beat has gone mainstream—but in local markets, it’s still intensely personal.”

“Last Thanksgiving, Steven Monacelli was awoken early in the morning by the sound of police officers knocking on the door of his Dallas home. Someone had called the cops to report that Monacelli, a freelance investigative correspondent for the Texas Observer, was abusing his girlfriend. Monacelli’s girlfriend—who has since become his fiancée—came to the door to demonstrate that the abuse claims were false.

Monacelli was disturbed—but not particularly shocked. ‘I pretty much immediately knew why they were there,’ he said. For more than four years, he’s been covering the rise of far-right extremism across the state of Texas, including stories about right-wing influence in Texas schools and a so-called ‘white nationalist fight club.’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/local-reporters-dangers-covering-extremism.php

No Clowning With the News

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Article in Poynter by Clara O’Rourke, 6/30/25

Headline: “When Jon Stewart took over ‘The Daily Show,’ satire became a trusted news source”

Subhead:  “Fed up with ‘partisan hackery,’ Stewart trumped traditional media for some fans — even with a show that followed ‘puppets making crank phone calls’ “

“. . .While he didn’t invent political satire, ‘The Daily Show’ evolved into a trusted source of news under his leadership, especially for some younger Americans who turned to it not just for laughs, but for clarity about what was actually happening in the world. By lampooning news cycle after news cycle, Stewart reframed what reporting could look like and who could credibly relay — as he said opening his first ‘Daily Show’ as host . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/poynter-50-jon-stewart-satire-news/

Media in the Cauldron?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 6/30/35

Headline:  “Boiling Frogs”

Subhead:   “How the press is faring halfway through a turbulent year.”

“Around a year ago, I tried, in this newsletter, to zoom out and take stock of what sort of media moment we were then in, roughly halfway through a hugely consequential year. I concluded that the moment felt muddled. At the time, a variety of right-wing media grifters and conspiracy theorists appeared to be facing long-awaited accountability for blatant lies, leading some observers to conclude that it was a good moment for the truth. And yet mainstream news organizations often seen as guarantors of the truth appeared to be in a state of malaise, too, at least compared with the energy and purpose they exhibited in the early part of Donald Trump’s first term. . .”

“. . . I’m not seeing a complacent journalistic corps failing to understand the stakes of this moment. I just wish those had been more universally understood earlier. Around this time last year, say.

“Fortunately for us all, the old saw about boiling frogs is a myth. When the water around them gets hot enough, they tend to jump out of it.”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/boiling-frogs-how-press-doing-halfway-year-2025.php

A Media Icon Has Died

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“Democracy Now” photo – Public media is NOT state-controlled media

Article in Common Dreams by Steven Harper, 6/30/25

Headline:  “A Personal Tribute to Bill Moyers, Who Never Stopped Pushing”

Subhead: “I would never claim to be an heir to Bill Moyers’ legacy, but I am among the millions of ordinary Americans for whom he was a powerful source of inspiration:

“A partial summary of Bill Moyers’ impressive life fills entire pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post—treatment reserved for royalty and rock stars. Bill was both.

“In those pages you’ll read about his illustrious political career as President Lyndon Johnson’s special assistant, press secretary, and key architect of the “Great Society”—a collection of programs that are now in danger, including the War on Poverty that produced Medicare, Medicaid, the Food Stamp Act, and the Economic Opportunity Act; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965; and more.

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/bill-moyers

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Article in The Washington Post by Fred A. Bernstein, 6/26/25

Headline: “Bill Moyers, eminence of public affairs broadcasting, dies at 91”

“He was White House press secretary under Lyndon B. Johnson and Newsday publisher before becoming an acclaimed television journalist, mostly for PBS.”

“Bill Moyers, who served as chief White House spokesman for President Lyndon B. Johnson and then, for more than 40 years, as a broadcast journalist known for bringing ideas — both timely and timeless — to television, died June 26 at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 91. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2025/06/26/bill-moyers-lbj-pbs-broadcasting-dead/

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Article in Democracy Now by Staff: 6/26/25

Headline:  “Remembering Bill Moyers: Public Broadcasting Legend Dies at 91”

“The legendary journalist Bill Moyers has died at the age of 91. In the 1960s, Moyers was a founding organizer of the Peace Corps and served as press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson. . .”

“In 2011 Bill Moyers said on Democracy Now: ‘I think this country is in a very precarious state at the moment. I think, as I say, the escalating, accumulating power of organized wealth is snuffing out everything public, whether it’s public broadcasting, public schools, public unions, public parks, public highways. Everything public has been under assault since the late 1970s, the early years of the Reagan administration, because there is a philosophy that’s been extant in America for a long time that anything public is less desirable than private. . ”

Read the full article at:

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/26/remembering_bill_moyers_public_broadcasting_legend

Helpful Media

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Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan, 6/28/25

Headline: “Struggling in politics? Consider a war – the media will help”

Subhead:  “Trump’s Iran strike knocked everything else out of the news, including the Minnesota shootings – and it was little surprise”

” ‘You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war,’ was the storied response of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to Frederic Remington after the illustrator was sent to Cuba to cover an insurrection and cabled back to the boss that there was little going on.

Much has changed since that famous (if true) exchange of the late 19th century, in the heyday of sensationalism known as yellow journalism.

But one thing that hasn’t changed is that there’s nothing like military conflict to capture the attention of the public, with plenty of help from the media. And the media – whether a tabloid newspaper or a cable news network – benefits, too. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/28/trump-iran-war-media-support

TV Network Validates Climate Change

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Article in The Nation by Mark Hertsgaard, 6/26/25

Headline:  “CBS News Leans Into the Climate Connection”

Subhead:  “Since Trump’s election, the network has produced more than 60 stories on the climate crisis.”

For years, most TV newscasts have neglected to make the climate connection with the kind of extreme heat blasting much of North America this week. In the summer of 2024, for example, when record high temperatures brutalized outdoor workers, withered crops, and worsened hurricanes, only 12 percent of US national TV news segments mentioned climate change, though its role in driving such extreme heat has long been scientifically indisputable.

“This week, CBS News decisively broke that pattern. David Schechter, the network’s national environment correspondent, aired two pieces that left no doubt that the ghastly heat afflicting tens of millions of Americans is climate change in action. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/cbs-news-climate-journalism/